she calls it agony
by The Musings of a Muse
Summary: The memories are smudged at the edges, water stained and sun slighted and marked by time and burned in glass houses under siege. (Lucy remembers more than any one of her friends and she does not remember enough because she cannot convince them that it wasn't a dream.)


** Yeah. Another one. Same warnings apply as the last one I posted, **hurts the soul like apathy**, and if you haven't read that one, well, read at your own risk.**

** This was inspired by the new Fairy Tail ending and the story **our faded stars **by **moon strut **who is a totally awesome author and you should all go read her stories RIGHT NOW.**

** I don't own Fairy Tail.**

**~MM~**

She remembers. Oh, does she remember.

Burning back in her soul, back behind her eyes and there are tears when the world is at witching hour because that just means that it's somewhere between black-night and light-day and colored-dawn-or-dusk. There's a burning and a running and a screaming because she remembers (remembers, remembers, remembers) and witching hour does not mean magic.

There is no magic.

There has not been magic for seven years and she remembers what it was like seven years ago when there was a guild that wasn't for those interested in computer games and nerds and wasting away their time on the internet under a name that isn't theirs and a gender that they might not be.

She remembers when Fairy Tail was not a tale, a lore, or legend, but a place and a thing and her _family_. She remembers that there were not so happy endings and she was the closest thing to a princess and she was a reverse Cinderella and was so much happier that way. She remembers that Jellal did not kiss the girl and remembers that Levy couldn't not tame the beast and remembers that Juvia died for her Marius. She remembers that Mira never woke after poking her finger on a spindle and remembers that Bisca is the only one who really made it.

Lucy remembers Fairy Tail – not tale, not legend, not lore – and she remembers being guarded by a dragon from her suitors and being happy that he's there because it meant her father could not touch her. She remembers fighting knights to go back to her turret in the sky and loves the fact that her dragon caught her on burning wings when she fell, fell, fell.

Lucy remembers and she does not remember enough.

The memories are smudged at the edges, water stained and sun slighted and marked by time and burned in glass houses under siege.

She does not remember why Erza's hair is parted across one eye and why it is important that she cries with both sets of brown.

She does not remember why Gray will not wear scarves (except for one, and only one, and it's a ratty thing from being washed too many times and has the initials J.L. on one end) and walks outside in shorts and t-shirts during December and January.

She does not remember why she loves pink and only a salmon color, more of a rose, maybe, than any other color, though she knows that blue and white were her favorite colors before seven years ago. She does not remember why she loves black squares – maybe they're diamonds? – set against white silk around a tan neck and hiding a scar. A scar from what she cannot remember.

Lucy remembers more than any one of her friends and she does not remember enough because she cannot convince them that it wasn't a dream.

(She'd had a concussion for the longest time after her brakes went out in her car and she was careening down a hill, only to smash into a tree. Natsu had been the first responder, a firefighter, and her best friend. He'd pulled her out, and he still gets inexplicably angry when she tells him that her concussion was from a man named Cain on and island called Heaven during a test to be stronger.)

At night, she wakes up screaming and crying and pleading for it to only be her; not to take them, don't take them, they don't need to come, don't need to die, and she'll do whatever that blasted Acnologia wants so long as he only takes her, not them not them not them.

During the days, she reaches for her keys and wonders where the constellations are.

Driving in her car, Lucy wonders why she doesn't ever take trains.

Riding with Natsu to their destination during Spring Break, she wonders how he can smile and if he has a stash of Dramamine somewhere.

Weekdays, she wonders why she's at school and not in the guild, looking for a job.

Lucy remembers something that no one else does and her friends call it writer's inspiration, a trick of the muse, a burst of genius, and Lucy calls it agony.

(She remembers. Burning in the back of her soul, burning behind her eyes, burning on her best friend's hand, and burning away a world with their hands intertwined for one where witching hour means in-between and uncertainty and it's called witching hour even though there's no magic.

She remembers it being July. That July was important, is important and that July is dead and dying and alive and living and her birthday and someone's vanishing day and that it wasn't July when she lost seven years, but she remembers thinking that it would have been ironic if it had been.) 

Her memories feel like nightmares. Her friends say they might be.

**~MM~**

** Yuppers. That's that. Review? Interpret? Yeah?**

** OK. Now to go back to writing for **In the Know**.**

** R&R please.**


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